


more than a glimpse

by neonbreadsticks



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Falling In Love, Friendship, M/M, Pining, Suzuka - Freeform, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonbreadsticks/pseuds/neonbreadsticks
Summary: Max doesn’t necessarily miss Daniel. But then again, he’s not qualified to judge what he misses and what he doesn’t miss.(Apparently there are people that do that for him. They’re called therapists. Max has yet to invest in one.)And then again, Daniel isn’t really someone to be missed. Daniel is better experienced, when he’s the cause of a dip in an uncomfortable sofa, when he’s laughing at something on Max’s face.It’s most likely a smile.Daniel is better that way. Instead of appearing in the scratches in Max’s mirror, instead of the occasional sound of his voice down the hall, and instead of foggy, soundless memories that Max wishes he’d stored better. None of those memories are complete.Max doesn’t think he misses Daniel.Until he sits in a quiet factory late at night, surrounded by cars flaunting the number three, listening for the echo of a friend that once belonged here too.
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	more than a glimpse

Max doesn’t necessarily _miss_ Daniel. But then again, he’s not qualified to judge what he misses and what he doesn’t miss. 

(Apparently there are people that do that for him. They’re called therapists. Max has yet to invest in one.)

And then again, Daniel isn’t really someone to be missed. Daniel is better experienced, when he’s the cause of a dip in an uncomfortable sofa, when he’s laughing at something on Max’s face. 

It’s most likely a smile. 

Daniel is better that way. Instead of appearing in the scratches in Max’s mirror, instead of the occasional sound of his voice down the hall, and instead of foggy, soundless memories that Max wishes he’d stored better. None of those memories are complete. 

Max doesn’t think he misses Daniel. 

Until he sits in a quiet factory late at night, surrounded by cars flaunting the number three, listening for the echo of a friend that once belonged here too. 

\--------------------

Daniel is introduced to Max in a factory that can’t seem to shut up, early in the morning when the sun is still bleary with sleep. 

Daniel is introduced to Max in a way that makes him seem like less of a threat and more of an acquaintance. Max is immediately suspicious. Because Daniel doesn’t pay him more than a glance, tossing a _g’day mate_ at him to catch before shifting his attention to something else. 

Some part of Max wishes Daniel stayed. To maybe help him out of this shell of unfamiliarity or maybe shield him from the prying eyes of the mechanics. 

But Daniel is already halfway across the room, drinking in laughter, breathing out the tune of a horrible country song, a semblance of something slightly more than what Max could ever be.

Always the performer, never the actor. 

Max has never wanted to punch anyone more.

\--------------------

Max would like to believe that the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix wasn’t a fluke. 

Because his first podium saw him drowned in champagne that cost more than his dignity, ruined in the gleaming Spanish sunlight by the underlying feeling that maybe this wasn’t his podium after all. 

He ate it all up anyway. 

Christian had smiled and offered him what he’d wanted to hear. That this was all his own doing and that none of it came from the very convenient difference in strategy that defined both his and Daniel’s races. 

The press is less kind. But Max allows them to ignore the fact that maybe his first win on his first race with his new team should be worth a celebration or at least a more-than-meaningless congratulation. And so they crush his victory beneath the soles of their boots and rip his golden crown to shreds on the freshly-vacuumed carpet. 

And when they’re done, Max finally stoops to sweep the pieces of his pride into his team-branded backpack. He hears their rattling all the way back to his hotel room. 

_Winning shouldn’t feel like this._

Max spends his evening hunched over the toilet bowl, retching the two protein bars he’d had for lunch, along with the win that he’d mistakenly swallowed. 

  
  


He’s barely finished glueing back his press-ready facade when someone knocks on his door. 

He feels the presence of the man before the door opens fully. Feels the words that he’ll say before Daniel forces his smile past Max and into the room. 

Daniel falls onto the sofa. He’s looking at the sprinkler on the ceiling. He still hasn’t looked at Max. 

“Do you have a beer?”

Max nods, and then realises that Daniel can’t see him. A bottle of water is thrown at Daniel. It’s not the off-season yet. 

Surprisingly, Daniel doesn’t catch it with his face. 

More surprisingly, Daniel actually turns to look at him. 

“Do you wanna watch a movie?”

Max feels the words pooling on his tongue. 

_I’m sorry for taking your win._

He holds them between his teeth and nods. 

And so they sit there in silence, Daniel lying on Max’s sofa, Max leaning against the backrest of an awkwardly placed kitchen chair, an awful spaghetti-western filling the gaps where their words should’ve been. 

(The cowboy is waxing poetic about finding his lost love.)

Daniel makes no move to congratulate him. Max makes no move to apologise. 

Something that tastes a lot like guilt buzzes inside Max’s ears. 

The bitterness in the air only fizzes and crackles out once Daniel starts snoring. Max chucks a cushion at him and tells him to shut up. 

He’s drowning out the cowboy’s speech. 

\--------------------

Daniel, despite popular belief, is relatively hard to find in a room of crowded people. 

Or maybe Max just needs to look harder. For the yellow that glows brighter than the rest, for the smile that floats above everyone’s heads, taken for granted until it’s gone. 

He probably should’ve thought his outfit through. A RedBull shirt in a room of Renault attire tends to attract unwanted attention. 

Still, he ploughs through the crowd of minions, taking care that he doesn’t accidentally elbow someone along the way. Taking care that he doesn’t drop the clumsily-wrapped box in his hands. 

The bow he’d so painstakingly strung together and slapped atop the box seems to be coming undone. He stops to pull it tighter.

He feels Daniel before anything else. 

This part of the room is warmer, where the shadows stop before they start, and where sunlight doesn’t dare shine too close, for fear of tainting the white light the man carries with him on his back.

Someone has placed a stupid party hat on Daniel’s head, pink glitter atop a mass of sweaty curls. 

Max is about ready to part ways with the box in his hands. Ready to dump them into Daniel’s hands along with a blanket trimmed with _happy birthday_ and _hope you like it_ and _god, please come back already._

Daniel hasn’t looked at Max yet. Because he’s talking to Nico and Aurelie and a group of other Renault employees that herd around to hear him preach. Or to perhaps get touched and cured by his presence. 

Max doesn’t blame them.

And so he backs away from the warmth and back into the mass of elbows and eyes that stare at him too long. He dumps the box onto a table piled high with horrifyingly large gifts wrapped to perfection, and takes a moment to acknowledge how pathetic his looks next to theirs. 

Max leaves the Renault trailer wrapped in the tattered blanket he’d meant for Daniel. 

He only looks back once.

\--------------------

The second time Daniel comes over, Max isn’t home. 

Instead, Max comes back to his apartment after a spontaneous evening run, to find the door not locked as he left it, but wide open and beckoning for him to come in. 

It smells like something’s burning. 

And Max is just about to call the fire department when he spots someone in all-too-familiar RedBull apparel fiddling with the knobs on the stove. 

“What the hell are you even doing here, Daniel?”

When Daniel turns, Max feels like he might’ve been too harsh. Through the smoke rising from the bacon in the pan, Daniel meets his gaze, eyes red and rubbed raw, mouth twitching with what looks like a valiant effort at a smile. He clutches the pan with one hand. His knuckles are purple. 

“I made bacon.”

And after Max makes no move to react. Daniel coughs out a laugh. 

“To celebrate your retirement and my bad luck.”

_Ah._

They burn their tongues with pieces of burnt bacon and scrape the bottom of the frying pan for pieces of good luck. And when there’s not enough luck to spare, Max cracks open two beers to help them forget the disaster that was the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix. 

To chase away the redness in Daniel’s eyes. 

He learns that Daniel is here because _figured we both got shit luck, might as well be shitty together._ And that all it took was a wink and a couple of carefully drawn out Australian-sounding sentences for his landlord to open the door to Max’s apartment. 

In another world, this would be a major security breach. 

In this one, Max opens his door to the bacon-burglar and tells him to _come back, anytime._ He laughs at statements that spill from lips too chapped to smile without bleeding, and pieces together bits of jokes he hasn’t heard in years.

It’s his confession of his pure, undying love for spaghetti-westerns after seeing that one all those weeks ago in that one Spanish hotel that works. Daniel laughs and tells Max he’s full of shit. 

Max laughs and agrees. He resists the urge to pump his fist in the air.

And so they marvel at the wonder of having breakfast at night and how poorly-seasoned the bacon was. Max doesn’t bring up Daniel’s hand. Daniel’s eyes no longer maintain their redness. 

Daniel’s lips stain themselves with blood. 

He kicks Daniel out at three in the morning, trying his best not to crumple a list of movie recommendations, carefully scrawled out in pencil on a crumpled tissue paper. 

It’s wet in one corner. 

He finds a magnet and sticks it to the fridge. 

\--------------------

They’re all crossed out now. Movies that he’s seen more than a couple of times, lines held too close to his heart for it to not be laughable. 

Max does try. 

So he invites Alex over one day, with Christian’s wishes for them to bond acting as a substitute. A filter stopping the truth from dribbling out between his lips. 

Daniel had probably gone back to Australia for winter break. Max had heard the wheels of his luggage against the wooden floorboards in the corridor. He hadn’t responded when his doorbell rang. 

He wishes he had. 

Alex sits on the edge of the sofa. Gingerly. Like he’s afraid that his sheer weight will break it in half. He crosses his hands in his lap. He sits straight and rigid. 

Max has grown to learn that Alex is a good guy. Too good for his own benefit, too poised for everyone else’s. Carrying the weight of a tragic hero in his dimples, polite acceptance coating his lips. 

They make halting small talk. Max probing gently in Alex’s direction, Alex not daring to take a couple steps too close. When they tire of dancing circles around each other, Max puts on a horrible movie to help them along. 

Max asks Alex if he’ll have a beer. Alex opts for a glass of water instead. 

And when Max gets up to get the drinks, the reflection on a poorly-placed mirror betrays Alex as he lifts the remote to check how much of the movie is left. 

Alex leaves before the movie is over. 

Max picks up his beer and stares at the piece of tissue paper flapping on the fridge. Faded pencil marks threaten to break through thin layers of fibre. It’s completely dry. 

He finds another magnet to hold its flapping edge down. 

\--------------------

Max appreciates it more than he should. When the sweaty champagne-filled mess of Daniel’s raceboot is passed into his hands, he more-than-willingly tips it into his mouth in a show of mock bravado and real stupidity. 

It tastes like absolute ass. 

But Daniel whoops and cheers from where he’s sitting on the top step of the podium and whispers silent congratulations when they’re asked to take a picture and maybe the long lasting taste of Daniel’s sweat in his mouth is worth it. 

Max decides to invade Daniel’s space on that one night in Malaysia. They sit on a polished hotel balcony. They talk about anything other than racing. 

And there’s a moment when the streetlights below them fade to mere blurs of shining darkness and when Daniel’s skin glistens with mirth and with sweat and the cooling effects of a win. 

When Max stares at Daniel’s lips a moment too long. 

But where the heat of Max’s lips should’ve been sits a smile as Daniel tips his head to the starless sky and lets out a cry that runs down Max’s spine and pours out of his ears. 

And Max realises that the whole world is Daniel’s space, and that everyone else is nothing but intruders begging

To get more than just a glimpse. 

\--------------------

Daniel comes to congratulate him after Austria. In a cape of good intentions and well-wishings and genuine, _genuine_ , pride. 

Max takes his pride and stuffs it into the cuffs of his racesuit. Takes his congratulations and plugs his ears with it. He thanks Daniel and forgets Daniel’s double-digit finish. 

He watches as Daniel leaves with the scraps of a warm smile blooming on his lips, and thinks of nothing but the cool metal of the trophy against his palms. 

The podium is awkward, to say the least. Valtteri offering nothing less than what he’s expected of, Charles offering nothing more than what he can spare. There is no sweat in his mouth but his own. There are no congratulations floating by his ears when he stands for a photo. 

He spends less time on the podium than he used to. 

  
  
  


Back in the hotel, he washes out Daniel’s congratulations and shoves it into his luggage along with the rest of the things he’d bought. 

\--------------------

Max doesn’t exactly know what to make of the 2017 season . Except that he’d dreamed along with Daniel for maybe just a little more than a 5th and 6th championship finish. 

It should probably faze him more than it does. 

But they’d had their moments. 

Max hangs Suzuka around his neck, hiding it if anyone gets too close, displaying it for those who feel like watching from a distance.

Because Suzuka is sacred and Suzuka is sweet and Max’s smile doesn’t fall any inches short of Daniel’s. 

And they’re both panting, tired and euphoric, running from the last-minute team meeting that Christian had called.

It’s not like they’re running from anything bad. 

They’re running towards something better. 

And when the lights from the paddock no longer bite at their ankles, Max stops and turns. He turns to meet Daniel pooled in shadow, Daniel whose hair refuses to weigh itself down, Daniel whose fucking _smile_ Max can’t keep from sparking his own. 

Max lays down in the middle of the track, where the tapering sunlight had left hours ago, disappearing to make way for the cool black of the night. Daniel pretends to dust off the space next to him. He lays down too. 

And in that moment, Max closes his eyes and feels his breath move against his lips. Feels Daniel’s against his cheek. 

He opens his eyes and turns to find Daniel’s stare, bright and complete, holding Max’s dreams in the space between his lips. 

It’s right there. Filling the gap between them, rife in the tarmac under them, begging Max to just _ask._

_Kiss me, Daniel._

He lifts his eyes away from Daniel. He steps back from what he wants. He closes his eyes and dreams. 

\--------------------

Max considers doing it when they’re thirty thousand feet in the air. Like the height and the altitude might just stop the ringing in his ears. 

Daniel is lively today. He speaks in broad hand gestures and Australian gibberish too quick for Max’s trained ears to pick up. He pokes at a new tattoo on his thigh. 

He reaches for his bag to show Max some new Renault team gear that he finds _absolutely bonkers sick, man!_

Max considers doing it. When Daniel’s face is particularly close and when his nose curves with the ridges of someone too confident to be perfect. 

(Not like Max doesn’t think he's perfect.)

Max stows whatever he was considering under his seat and tells Daniel that _damn, that_ is _pretty sick._

\--------------------

2018 is a series of mass destruction and misplaced conviction. It falls on the border of Greek tragedy and fails to meet the criteria of a melodrama. 

Max enjoys little to none of it. 

But that’s mainly because he’s the accidental antagonist, holding his hands up in surrender to things he shouldn’t have indulged in. 

Azerbaijan is his fault. And Max wears it taped to his chest until people start looking. He crumples it up and blames it on Daniel.

It’s easier that way. 

Daniel doesn’t open the door when he knocks. 

And so Max takes a trip down to the grocery store. He returns with a packet of bacon. He fries it to a crisp. 

And then he scrapes everything into a container and tries again. 

Daniel doesn’t open the door when he knocks. 

Because if Daniel is the joker, Max is the fool holding a plastic container full of burnt bacon waiting for someone to let him in. Max is the idiot who thought that a box of food and pathetic pleas to _open the door, Daniel_ would be a reasonable price for Daniel’s forgiveness. 

He knocks on the door. 

And he’s shouting. At the door that won’t open, at the _friend_ he wants back, in the middle of a fucking hotel corridor. His blood roars in his veins and splatters against the stupid hotel door. 

Finally, he leaves, tossing the box at the base of the door.

Max knows that he has no right. Has no right to be angry at Daniel and has no right to believe that Daniel would welcome him in with open arms and a pretty smile. 

But maybe he’s angry. That out of all the things he’d shouted at Daniel. Out of all the sentences that spewed out of his immature, impulsive, _idiotic_ teenage mouth, none of them were an apology. 

  
  
  


When Max leaves his room the next morning, the box is still in front of Daniel’s door. 

He picks it up and throws it into the bin. 

\--------------------

There are times when Max doesn’t think he’s the only one who’s feeling it. 

Because the silence in debriefs stretches a little longer than it used to. And Max finds the engineers staring expectantly at Pierre, only to find Pierre staring back, equally as lost. 

There are no more spontaneous spurts of laughter. There is no more warmth to chase. 

“Good job today, Da—” Christian stops. “Pierre, sorry.”

Max knows he’s not the only one who’s feeling it. 

\--------------------

Maybe it would’ve made a difference if Max had done less. Maybe it would’ve hurt Daniel less if he’d run wider into turns, making each good result less than what it could’ve been. 

But they’re racers after all. And racers are self-centred people who only think for themselves. 

So Max takes the perfect lines into each turn, finds himself on the podium more times than Daniel’s car finds itself sputtering to a painful stop. Finds himself fourth in the championship. Leaves Daniel scrambling for traction in sixth.

He waits for Daniel to come crawling to him each time, like he’d done all those years ago in Monaco. Daniel offers him smiles and corny jokes that Max willingly laughs at. Daniel’s hand has relegated itself to a constant shade of purple. 

Max thinks of it no more than he thinks of the undrunk beers in his fridge. 

When it hits the news Max comes crashing to a halt. 

He sees himself stumble out of the apartment and down the hall where he _knows_ Daniel is, letting the world explode around him. 

And Max knows he has no right, to let his rage get the better of him and to fall into Daniel’s arms, when Daniel is already slipping from his footholds. Max does it anyway. He cries and sobs and feels the soft fabric of Daniel’s shirt against his forehead and feels Daniel alive and breathing and _well_ against him. 

He lets Daniel hold him. 

He lets himself drown.

Max doesn’t notice until he finds a way to stand. Because Daniel’s eyes are red and bleary like the morning sun, and his skin is wet with Max’s tears. His lips bleed with the remnants of a smile. 

“You look like absolute ass, Max.”

Max laughs. 

He’s never wanted to punch someone more. 

  
  
  


The sofa dips under their weight, the cowboy on the television drones on about love.

Max wants to tell him he’s gotten it all wrong.

He pours stale beer and Daniel’s laugh down his throat. 

\--------------------

There is a loose thread on his shirt. 

It dangles from a sleeve that dips already a few inches shorter than the other. Tugging on it won’t help. 

Max tugs on it anyway. 

And watches as row after row of fabric detaches itself from its stitching, joining the already-trailing thread that hangs. 

He wraps it around his finger and breaks it off. 

**Author's Note:**

> probably the most physically exhausting thing i've ever written ahhgsfhsa i love dan and max too much and i feel like they both deserve the absolute world :')) inspired by my two closest friends that i don't get to see often enough. i miss yall


End file.
